Household savings figures in Turnbull’s energy policy look rubbery

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The big questions about Malcolm Turnbull’s energy policy will be, for consumers, what it would mean for their bills and, for business, how confident it can be that the approach would hold if Bill Shorten were elected.

The government needs to convince people they’ll get some price relief, but even as Turnbull unveiled the policy the rubbery nature of the household savings became apparent.

Crucially, the policy aims to give investors the certainty they have demanded. But the risk is this could be undermined if Labor, which is well ahead in the polls, indicated an ALP government would go off in yet another direction.

And most immediately, there is also the issue of states’ attitudes, because their co-operation is needed for the policy’s implementation. Turnbull talked to premiers after the announcement, and the plan goes to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) next month.

Turnbull describes the policy as “a game-changer” that would deliver “affordability, reliability and responsibility [on emissions reduction]”.

Unsurprisingly – given it would end the subsidy for renewables, rejecting Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s recommendation for a clean energy target – the policy sailed through the Coalition partyroom with overwhelming support.

Finkel later chose to go along with it rather than be offended by the discarding of his proposal. The important thing, he said, was that “they’re effectively adopting an orderly transition” for the energy sector, which was what he had urged.

In the partyroom Tony Abbott was very much a minority voice when he criticised the plan; his desire for a discussion of the politics was effectively put down by a prime minister who had his predecessor’s measure on the day.

The policy – recommended by the Energy Security Board, which includes representatives of the bodies operating and regulating the national energy market – is based on a new “national energy guarantee”, with two components.

Energy retailers across the National Electricity Market, which covers the eastern states, would have to “deliver reliable and lower emissions generation each year”.

A “reliability guarantee” would be set to deliver the level of dispatchable energy – from coal, gas, pumped hydro, batteries – needed in each state. An “emissions guarantee” would also be set, to contribute to Australia’s Paris commitments.

According to the Energy Security Board’s analysis, “it is expected that following the guarantee could lead to a reduction in residential bills in the order of A$100-115 per annum over the 2020-2030 period”. The savings would phase up during the period.

When probed, that estimate came to look pretty rough and ready. More modelling has to be done. In Question Time, Turnbull could give no additional information about the numbers, saying he only had what was in the board’s letter to the government.

So people shouldn’t be hanging out for the financial relief this policy would bring. Although to be fair, Turnbull points to the fact it is part of a suite of measures the government is undertaking.

Business welcomed the policy, but made it clear it wanted more detail and – crucially – that it is looking for bipartisanship.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the policy’s detail “and its ability to win bipartisan and COAG support will be critical”. Andy Vesey, chief executive of AGL, tweeted that “with bipartisan support” the policy would provide investment certainty.

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The Australian Industry Group said it was “a plausible new direction for energy policy” but “only bipartisanship on energy policy will create the conditions for long-term investment in energy generation and by big energy users”.

It’s not entirely clear whether the government would prefer a settlement or a stoush with the opposition on energy.

Turnbull told parliament it had arranged for the opposition to have a briefing from the Energy Security Board, and urged Labor to “get on board” with the policy.

But Labor homed in on his not giving a “guarantee” on price, as well as the smallness of the projected savings. Climate spokesman Mark Butler said it appeared it would be “just a 50 cent [a week] saving for households in three years’ time, perhaps rising to as much as $2.00 per week in a decade”.

But while the opposition has gone on the attack, it is also hedging its bets, playing for time.

“We’ve got to have … some meat on the bones,” Butler said. “Because all the prime minister really announced today was a bunch of bones.”

“We need detail to be able to sit down with stakeholders, with the energy industry, with big businesses that use lots of energy, with stakeholder groups that represent households, and obviously state and territory governments as well, and start to talk to them about the way forward in light of the announcement the government made today,” he said.

The initial reaction from state Labor is narky. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said it seemed Finkel had been replaced by “professor Tony Abbott as the chief scientist”, while South Australia’s Jay Weatherill claimed Turnbull “has now delivered a coal energy target.”

These are early days in this argument. Federal Labor will have to decide how big an issue it wants to make energy and climate at the election. Apart from talking to stakeholders and waiting for more detail, it wants to see whether the plan flies at COAG.

If it does, the federal opposition could say that rather than tear up the scheme in government, it would tweak it and build on it. That way, Labor would avoid criticism it was undermining investment confidence.

But if there is an impasse with the states and the plan is poorly received by the public, the “climate wars” could become hotter.

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Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Federal government unveils ‘National Energy Guarantee’ – experts react

Alan Pears, RMIT University; Anna Skarbek, Monash University, and Dylan McConnell, University of Melbourne

The federal government has announced a new energy policy, after deciding against adopting the Clean Energy Target recommended by chief scientist Alan Finkel.

The new plan, called the National Energy Guarantee, will require electricity retailers to make a certain amount of “dispatchable” power available at all times, and also to reduce the electricity sector’s greenhouse emissions by 26% relative to 2005 levels by 2030.

The government says it will save the average household up to A$115 a year after 2020, while also ensuring reliability. Below, our experts react to the new policy.

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Read more: Infographic: the National Energy Guarantee at a glance

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“The federal government will be even less important in energy policy”

Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University

Business, state governments and the energy industry have been clamouring for more certainty from the federal government. Now they have it: the federal government will be even less important in shaping energy and climate policy than in the past, leaving states and territories, local government, business and households to focus on driving the energy revolution and cutting emissions.

The new policy will impose a reliability obligation on energy retailers, who will presumably have to select an appropriate mix of energy suppliers to meet it, and the devil will be in the detail. If the required proportion of dispatchable electricity is reasonable, and if retailers and new renewable energy generators are free to decide how to deliver it, then the cost and difficulty of compliance may be modest.

For example, retailers and generators could piggyback on the demand response capacity volunteered for the ARENA Demand Response project. This could help accelerate the rollout of a variety of energy storage solutions, in turn reducing the market power of the big generators and driving down energy prices.

On the other hand, if the options are limited, the obligation could increase the market power of the gas industry, meaning no relief from high wholesale prices.

It will also be interesting to see if the obligation is applied across all new generation. If so, it could significantly increase the cost of new coal generation, as retailers would have to cover the risk of failure of a large generation unit, as well as managing its slow response to changing demand.

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“Australia’s electricity sector can cut emissions more”

Anna Skarbek, Chief Executive, ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University

The key question is whether the emissions guarantee will be strong enough for Australia to meet its current and future climate obligations under the Paris Agreement.

Electricity creates more than one-third of Australia’s total emissions. If we don’t reduce the emissions in our electricity, then we don’t unlock other emissions reduction opportunities such as electric vehicles.

If the National Energy Guarantee aims at cutting emissions by only 26% by 2030 then other sectors across the economy would have to make greater emissions
reductions sooner.

But our research shows that Australia’s electricity sector can cut emissions by 60% below 2005 levels by 2030. Harnessing this potential will help us to reach future targets that progressively increase under the Paris Agreement.

If you don’t achieve deep emissions reductions in the electricity sector, a major strengthening of policy will be needed for the other sectors where there is less momentum currently. For example, stronger action would be needed in transport, buildings, industry and land.

Australia’s climate policy, which is being reviewed before the end of the year, will need to cover more than just the electricity sector. Other measures should include the introduction of vehicle emissions standards, a more stringent
national building code, a dramatic improvement in the uptake of energy efficiency measures across industry and stronger incentives for reforestation.

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How the reliability guarantee will work

Dylan McConnell, Researcher at the Australian German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne

Under the NEG retailers are responsible for ensuring continuous supply of energy. But retailers don’t always generate the energy they sell. In order to meet the NEG’s reliability obligation retailers will most likely enter into cap contracts with generators.

Unlike other kinds of contracts, which impose a fixed price, cap contracts only come into play when high demand pushes energy prices over a certain pre-agreed level. At that point, generators with flexible dispatchable power guarantee that they will provide extra energy.

The extreme peaks, where the price heads to A$14,000 per megawatt hour – only come a couple of times a year, if at all. To compensate generators for building all that extra capacity, retailers pay a daily premium. Cap contracts essentially act as insurance: they protect retailers from extremely high prices during intense demand, and they offer generators the chance of steep profits.

Cap contracts are a standard part of the market, and retailers already used them to manage their risk exposure. The Energy Security Board has said:

This reliability guarantee would require retailers to hold forward contracts with dispatchable resources that cover a predetermined percentage of their forecast peak load.

If the new reliability standards are in line with retailers own internal guidelines, the impact on the market should be minimal. But if the government imposes higher standards, retailers will have to purchase more cap contracts (or build their own dispatchable power plants).

If demand for cap contracts increase, it would most likely encourage investment in gas and hydro power plants.

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This article was updated on October 18.

Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University; Anna Skarbek, CEO at ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University, and Dylan McConnell, Researcher at the Australian German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The government’s energy policy hinges on some tricky wordplay about coal’s role

John Quiggin, The University of Queensland

The most important thing to understand about the federal government’s new National Energy Guarantee is that it is designed not to produce a sustainable and reliable electricity supply system for the future, but to meet purely political objectives for the current term of parliament.

Those political objectives are: to provide a point of policy difference with the Labor Party; to meet the demands of the government’s backbench to provide support for coal-fired electricity; and to be seen to be acting to hold power prices down.

Meeting these objectives solves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s immediate political problems. But it comes at the cost of producing a policy that can only produce further confusion and delay.

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Read more: Federal government unveils ‘National Energy Guarantee’ – experts react

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The government’s central problem is that, as well as being polluting, coal-fired power is not well suited to the problem of increasingly high peaks in power demand, combined with slow growth in total demand.

Coal-fired power plants are expensive to start up and shut down, and are therefore best suited to meeting “baseload demand” – that is, the base level of electricity demand that never goes away. Until recently, this characteristic of coal was pushed by the government as the main reason we needed to maintain coal-fired power.

The opposite of baseload power is “dispatchable” power, which can be turned on and off as needed.

Classic sources of dispatchable power include hydroelectricity and gas, while recent technological advances mean that large-scale battery storage is now also a feasible option.

Coal-fired plants can be adapted to be “load-following” which gives them some flexibility in their output. But this requires expensive investment and reduces the plants’ operating life. The process is particularly ill-suited to the so-called High Efficiency, Low Emissions (HELE) plants being pushed as a solution to the other half of the policy problem, reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Given that there is only limited capacity to expand hydro (Turnbull’s Snowy 2.0 is years away, if it ever happens) and that successive governments have made a mess of gas policy, any serious expansion of dispatchable power would realistically need to focus on batteries. The South Australian government reached this conclusion some time ago, making a decision to invest in its own battery storage. That move was roundly condemned by the federal government, which at the time was still focused on baseload.

The government’s emphasis on baseload was always mistaken, but the confusion and noise surrounding energy policy meant that few people understood this. That changed in September when the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) reported that Australia’s National Electricity Market faced a capacity shortfall of up to 1,000 megawatts for the coming summer, and that older baseload power stations will struggle to cope.

Clearly this situation called for more flexibility in dispatchable sources in the short term, and widespread investment in dispatchables for the long term.

A question of definition

Obviously, this presented Turnbull with a dilemma. The policy advice clearly favoured dispatchables, but vocal members of his backbench wanted a policy to subsidise coal.

The answer was breathtakingly simple. The new policy redefines coal as dispatchable, despite it having the opposite technological characteristics.

This is not an entirely new approach. Before the government decided to abandon the proposed Clean Energy Target it put a lot of effort into redefining coal as “clean”. The approach here involved creating confusion between carbon capture and storage (CCS) and HELE power stations. CCS involves capturing carbon dioxide from power station smokestacks and pumping it underground, thereby avoiding emissions. This would be a great solution to the problems of carbon pollution if it worked, but unfortunately it’s hopelessly uneconomic

By contrast, HELE is just a fancy name for the marginal improvements made to coal-fired technology over the 30-50 years since most of our existing coal-fired plants were designed and built. The “low” emissions are far higher than those for gas-fired power, let alone renewables or, for that matter, nuclear energy (another uneconomic option).

The core of the government’s plan is a requirement that all electricity retailers should provide a certain proportion of dispatchable electricity – a term that has now been arbitrarily defined to include coal. By creating a demand for this supposedly dispatchable power, the policy discourages the retirement of the very coal units that AEMO has identified as ill-suited to our needs.

Elusive certainty?

Given that the policy is unlikely to survive beyond the next election, it’s unlikely that it will prompt anyone to build a new gas-fired power station, let alone a coal-fired plant. So the only real effect will be to discourage investment in renewables and create yet further policy uncertainty.

This undermines the basis for the (unreleased) modelling supposedly showing that household electricity costs will fall. These savings are supposed to arise from the investment certainty resulting from bipartisan agreement. But the political imperative for the government is to put forward a policy Labor can’t support, to provide leverage in an election campaign. If the government had wanted policy certainty it could have accepted Labor’s offer to support the Clean Energy Target.

It remains to be seen whether this scheme will achieve the government’s political objectives. It is already evident, however, that it does not represent a long-term solution to our problems in energy and climate policy.

John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Subsidies for renewables will go under Malcolm Turnbull’s power plan

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The government is set to unveil its long-awaited energy plan that would scrap subsidies for renewables and impose obligations on power companies to source a certain proportion of “reliable” supply.

While the plan emphasises reliability and reducing power prices, the government is also confident it would allow Australia to meet its commitments under the Paris climate change agreement.

Cabinet considered the scheme on Monday night. It goes to the Coalition partyroom on Tuesday morning, before being announced later in the day.

It follows months of uncertainty and internal pressures within the Coalition over the future of energy policy, as the government battles to head off the risk of blackouts as well as to quell mounting voter anger at soaring bills.

In a report released on Monday the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said residential electricity prices have increased by 63% on top of inflation in the last decade, with network costs being the major contributor.

As the government has flagged for a week, its plan rejects the clean energy target recommended in June by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, to which Malcolm Turnbull initially appeared favourably disposed.

Ironically, the alternative scheme has been worked up by the Energy Security Board, a new body that was established on a recommendation from the Finkel inquiry.

Under the scheme, power companies would have twin obligations imposed on them by the government.

• They would be required to get a certain amount of power from “reliable” sources – whether coal, gas, hydro, or batteries.

• They would also have to source another amount that was consistent with lowering emissions in line with Australia’s international commitments. Australia has signed up to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 26–28% below 2005 levels by 2030.

It would be up to the companies as to how they met the obligations put on them.

The plan assumes that prices would be driven down because the scheme would give the certainty that investors have been looking for, so supply would increase.

The Coalition party meeting will be given an estimate of the expected savings on power bills, which would be more than the A$90 annual household saving estimated under the Finkel target.

The scheme is expected to appeal to the right in the Coalition because there are no subsidies for renewables, making for a level playing field – coal is treated the same as wind and solar.

The present renewable energy target would continue until its expiry in 2020, after which there would be no new certificates issued under it.

The Energy Security Board has on it an independent chair, Kerry Schott, and deputy chair, Clare Savage, as well as the heads of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the Australian Energy Regulator, and the Australian Energy Market Commission.

The ABC reported that Drew Clarke, a former chief-of-staff to Turnbull and former head of the communications department, will become AEMO’s chair. This would be an appointment by the Council of Australian Governments.

In Question Time, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten accused Turnbull of “caving in” to Tony Abbott by rejecting a clean energy target.

Turnbull said the government “will deliver a careful energy plan based on engineering and economics, designed to deliver the triple bottom line of affordability, reliability and meeting our international commitments. And that is in stark contrast to the ideology and the idiocy that have been inflicted on us for years by the Australian Labor Party.”

Abbott, speaking on 2GB, said that “we’ve got a big policy problem” that needed to be addressed. This included “continued heavy subsidies for unreliable power”, lack of new coal-fired baseload power, bans on gas and a lack of incentives for farmers to go along with gas development, and bans on nuclear power.

Abbott said the problem over the last few years was that “we haven’t been running a system for affordability and reliability, we’ve been running a system to reduce emissions. It’s given us some of the most expensive power in the world and this is literally insane, given that we are the country with the largest readily available reserves of coal, gas and uranium.”

Monday’s Newspoll found that 63% thought taxpayer-funded subsidies for investment in renewables should be continued; only 23% thought they should be removed. But 58% said they would not be prepared to pay any more for electricity in order to implement a clean energy target to foster more renewable energy sources.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Power bills can fall – but the main attention must be on affordability: ACCC

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Rod Sims, holds out the prospect of an absolute fall in electricity bills over coming years – but says this will require focusing centrally on affordability, not just reliability and sustainability.

In its Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry preliminary report into the electricity market, released on Monday, the ACCC says residential electricity prices have increased by 63% on top of inflation in the last decade, with network costs being the major contributor.

Household bills rose by nearly 44%, from an average of A$,1177 in 2007-08 to $1,691 in 2016-17.

Household bills have risen less than electricity prices because usage has fallen, mainly due to self-supply by solar panels.

The report comes as cabinet is set to consider on Monday the government’s energy policy, which it hopes to take to the Coalition partyroom on Tuesday. Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg last week signalled the government had moved away from the Finkel inquiry’s recommendation for a clean energy target.

Facing the prospect of a shortage of power in the period ahead, the government is particularly focused on the need to increase dispatchable power.

The clean energy target, even in modified form, is also unpopular in Coalition ranks.

The ACCC report indicates that supporting renewable energy has been a relatively minor driver of the spiking of prices.

Sims – who flagged the ACCC findings when he addressed the National Press Club recently – says affordability should be the “dominant” objective in policy but in recent years it has come after several other objectives – including reliability, dividends and sustainability.

He said different approaches were needed to pursue each of the objectives of affordability, reliability and sustainability. As reliability and sustainability were pursued, it was important to do it in “the least-cost way and to let people know the costs”.

“What’s clear from our report is that price increases over the past ten years are putting Australian businesses and consumers under unacceptable pressure,” he said.

The ACCC found that on average across the national electricity market (which does not include Western Australia or the Northern Territory), a 2015-16 residential bill was $1,524, excluding GST. This was made up of network costs (48%), wholesale costs (22%), environmental costs (7%), retail and other costs (16%) and retail margins (8%).

Sims said the primacy of network costs in rising bills was not widely recognised.

Since July 2016, retail price rises were likely to be driven by higher wholesale prices.

“We estimate that higher wholesale costs during 2016-17 contributed to a $167 increase in bills. The wholesale (generation) market is highly concentrated and this is likely to be contributing to higher wholesale electricity prices.”

The ACCC estimates that in 2016-17 South Australia had the highest residential electricity prices, followed by Queensland, then Victoria and New South Wales. SA prices were roughly double those in Europe.

Sims said measures the government had already taken – notably telling companies to make customers aware of better deals, and its plan to scrap the process allowing companies to appeal against decisions of the Australian Energy Regulator – would help lower prices.

The ACCC is now looking in detail at further measures, ahead of making a final report. In the meantime, its preliminary report puts forward some suggestions. These include the states reviewing concessions policy to ensure consumers know their entitlements and concessions are well targeted to the needy, and a tougher stand against market breaches.

It says increased generation capacity (particularly from non-vertically integrated generators), preventing further consolidation of existing generation assets, and lowering gas prices could help reduce the pressure on bills.

The ACCC will also look at how to mitigate the effect of past investment decisions – but it notes that many are “locked in” and will continue to burden users for many years.

It will as well consider what more can be done to make it easier for consumers to switch suppliers.

The report says that “an increasing number of consumers are reporting difficulties meeting their electricity costs, and some consumers have been forced to minimise their spending on other essential services, including food and health services, to afford electricity bills.

“Businesses across all sectors have faced even higher increases over the past 12 months, following renegotiation of long term contracts. Many of these businesses cannot pass the increased costs on and are considering reducing staff or relocating overseas. Some businesses have even been forced to close.”

The ACCC’s final report will be released in June next year.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Middle income earners probably won’t be paying as much tax as the government expects

The PBO has likely overestimated future personal income tax revenue.
Shutterstock

Phil Lewis, University of Canberra

The federal government’s return to a budgetary surplus by 2020/21 will mainly be due to a projected increase in personal income tax revenue, according to a report from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

The PBO modelling shows that people in the middle of the income spectrum will bear the brunt of this, due to bracket creep. This occurs when tax thresholds (including the tax free threshold) stay constant while income grows due to inflation.

But the PBO modelling includes assumptions about inflation and wages growth that do not bear a resemblance to what is happening in the economy. Both inflation and wages growth have been depressed for some time, and there’s little reason to believe there will be a sudden increase.

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Read more: How market forces and weakened institutions are keeping our wages low

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The fundamental assumption driving the PBO projections is nominal (not adjusted for inflation) income growth of between 4% and 5%. This consistutes 2% to 2.5% annual inflation and 2.5% to 3% percent annual increase in real income.

The difference between nominal and real incomes is important as it is increases in real income (adjusted for inflation) that result in higher standards of living. But taxes are levied on our nominal incomes, regardless of inflation. Because of this difference, bracket creep means that real incomes after tax (otherwise known as disposable income) will actually fall.

What the PBO report projects

To calculate how much tax we will be paying in the future, the PBO first makes assumptions about inflation and real earnings growth and uses these to project individual incomes. Current income tax rates are then applied to these projected incomes, and the increased amount paid by each individual is added together.

According to the PBO’s modelling, the average individual tax rate will increase by 2.3% from 2017–18 to 2021–22. And every income group will see their tax rates increase over this period.

The largest tax increase is expected for individuals in the middle incomes, who have an average taxable of A$46,000 in 2017/18. This group are projected to face an increase in their average tax rate of 3.2% by 2021–22. Their average tax rate is expected to increase from 14.9% to 18.2%.

Meanwhile, those in the second lowest and two highest income quintiles are expected to see their average tax rate rise between 1.9% and 2.5%. The average tax rate for individuals in the lowest income group is projected to rise by only 0.2%, as most of their income remains below the tax free threshold.

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The increases in average tax rates are even greater if a comparison is made with 2016/17, the latest year for which individuals have been paying tax. As you can see in the previous chart, when compared to 2016/17, individuals in the middle income quintile will see their average tax rate rise by 3.8%.

As you can see, the largest burden of the tax brack creep will fall on “average Australians”. This is because they will see their nominal (before adjusting for inflation) incomes rise. Typically, the lowest income earners do not earn enough to get above the tax free threshold and the highest income earners already pay a large portion of their tax at the top marginal rates.

Because of increasing inflation and wage growth, the Parliamentary Budget Office projects that even the lowest income earners will be liable to pay income tax by 2019/20.

Heroic assumptions?

The 2% to 2.5% inflation assumed in PBO’s forecast is in the mid-point of the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2% to 3%, so this is not entirely unreasonable assumption.

But both PBO’s inflation and wage growth (2.5% to 3%) assumptions are currently way above the levels seen in the economy. According to the ABS annual inflation currently stands at just 1.8%, and the earnings of all Australian employees is growing at 1.6% per annum.

The reasons for persistent low inflation, not just in Australia but in most other industrialised countries, are not well understood or agreed upon.

And a number of theories have been put forward to explain low real wage growth including, the degree of underemployment, reduced job security, declining bargaining power of unions and increased potential competition, either from advances in technology or from international competition.

But regardless of the reasons for the persistently laggard growth in wages and inflation, there are also no signs that these rates will rise significantly any time soon, let alone to the levels assumed by the PBO.

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Read more: Budget explainer: why is Australia’s wage growth so sluggish?

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Given the information contained in the PBO report we can’t calculate exactly what the impact of these tax increases will be for individuals.

However, it is clear that if the current wage and price conditions persist the actual tax revenue will fall way short of the projected figures for all years up to and including 2021/22 and make a Budget balance even further off.

We can also make some extrapolations based on averages. As a simple example, consider someone on an annual income of A$84,000 in 2017/18 (which is around the current average earnings in Australia). Under the assumption that nominal incomes increase by only 2% per year, the tax paid (including Medicare levy) in 2020/21 would be A$23,158.

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However, if you compare this to nominal income growth of 5% (which is what the PBO assumes) the tax paid would be A$26,357 in 2020/21.

That is, tax collected from this individual would be 12% less under a low growth scenario than under the PBO’s more optimistic scenario. In the years 2018/19 and 2019/20 the tax collected would be respectively 4% and 8% less. This illustrates how precarious the projection of a balanced Budget in 2020/21 is.

Whatever the outcome, it is for certain that income earners will see any nominal increases eroded not just by inflation, but also through bracket creep.

Phil Lewis, Professor of Economics, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Shorten promises $1 billion fund to finance manufacturing enterprises

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Bill Shorten is promising that a Labor government would set up a A$1 billion fund to assist “advanced manufacturing”.

Modelled on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which was established by Labor, the Australian Manufacturing Future Fund “will support innovative Australian manufacturing firms who want to grow their businesses and create jobs, but who might find it difficult to obtain private sources of finance”.

Shorten will make the announcement on Saturday in Adelaide. It comes as South Australia is hit by the shutdown of Holden’s car production plant there on October 20, with a loss of about 950 jobs. It also highlights the more interventionist policy approach being seen from both sides of politics.

A state where manufacturing struggles, SA faces an election early next year in which jobs and business opportunities will be issues. Last week’s announcement that Nick Xenophon will leave the Senate to lead a team of state candidate has thrown a wildcard into the poll.

Shorten and Shadow Industry Minister Kim Carr said in a statement that the proposed fund would help local manufacturers innovate and diversify. This could mean:

• auto component manufacturers re-tooling or diversifying into other industries;

• food manufacturers investing in new equipment for new products to export to Asia; and

• metals fabricators expanding into pre-fabricated housing.

They said that an ALP government would ask the fund to give priority to considering “transformative investments in the automative manufacturing and food manufacturing sectors”.

Shorten and Carr quoted the Australian Industry Group saying that financial institutions were “downgrading manufacturing industries and making access to finance more difficult and expensive”.

“Labor won’t let the big banks hold Australian advanced manufacturing back,” they said.

The fund, which would not be financing large-scale enterprises, would partner with private finance to reduce the perceived risk in innovative projects. It would “apply commercial rigour” when investing and would offer financing in the forms of equity, concessional loans and loan guarantees. It would not make cash grants.

It might partner with the CEFC to invest in energy efficient projects and equipment to help with a business’ energy costs, or with the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation to access new export markets with new products.

The fund would be off-budget. It would be expected to be financially self- sufficient and achieve a benchmark rate of return across its portfolio.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

What should Australian companies be doing right now to protect our privacy

David Glance, University of Western Australia

Australians are increasingly concerned about how companies handle their personal data, especially online.

Faced with the increasing likelihood that this data will be compromised, either through cyber attacks or mishandling, companies are now being forced into a more comprehensive approach to collecting and protecting customers’ personal data. The question remains – what is the best approach to achieving this goal?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has proposed that instead of talking about cybersecurity – companies, organisations and nations should be viewing the problem from a digital security risk management perspective.

Cybersecurity often overlooks risks to data that have nothing to do with a “cyber” element, even if people could agree on a definition of that term. In the case of Edward Snowden for example, he used a colleague’s credentials to access the system and copied files to a USB drive.

Digital security risk management involves getting everyone in an organisation to see digital risk as part of the overall risks that the organisation faces. The extent of risk any organisation is willing to take in any particular activity depends on the activities value. The aim is to manage the risk to a level that is acceptable to all parties.

What do you do about the weak link: humans?

It is worth remembering that in the case of the Equifax breach in which the personal details of up to 143 million customers in the US were leaked, it was largely human errors that were to blame.

Put simply, the person who was responsible for applying the patch (a piece of software designed to update a computer program or its supporting data, to fix or improve it) simply didn’t do their job. The software that was supposed to check whether the patch had been applied also failed to pick this up.

Until humans can be taken out of the equation entirely, it is almost impossible to remain entirely secure, or to avoid the inadvertent disclosure of personal and private information. Insider threat (as this type of risk is known) is difficult to combat and companies have tried various approaches to managing this risk including predictions based on psychological profiling of staff.

Automation and artificial intelligence may be a way of achieving this in the future. This works by minimising the amount of sensitive information staff have direct access to and surfacing only the analysis or interpretation of that data.

A litany of recent breaches

If you needed convincing about the vulnerability of personal data on the Internet, you only need look at Gemalto’s data breach website or DataBreaches.net.

The breaches of private and personal information don’t recognise national boundaries with hacks of companies like Yahoo having affected 3 billion users, including millions of Australians.

Of course, Australian companies and organisations have also been involved with spectacular data breaches. Last year saw the Australian Red Cross expose 555,000 customer records online.

Of more concern was the Australian Department of Health had published online what they believed were de-identified records of Medicare and pharmaceutical claims of more than 3 million patients. Researchers at the University of Melbourne discovered that the “encrypted” doctor provider numbers could be decrypted.

Are we looking at it in the wrong way?

Whilst there are practical steps companies can take to protect digital systems and data, there are more fundamental questions companies should be asking from a risk perspective. In order to navigate these questions, companies need to understand the data they collect and perhaps surprisingly, this is something most companies struggle to do.

The 13 Australian Privacy Principles from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner outline the basics of how organisations and agencies should handle personal information. The practical application of these principles involves an approach called Privacy By Design for all applications and services companies offer.

Enter confidential computing

For CSIRO’s Data61, the answer to breaches of this sort is “confidential computing”. Data61 is tasked with data innovation and commercialisation of its research ideas. Confidential computing is the remit of Data61’s latest spin-off, N1 Analytics.

The main aspect of confidential computing involves keeping data encrypted at all times and using special techniques to be able to query data that is still encrypted and only decrypting the answer.

This can even allow others outside an organisation to query internal data directly or link to it with their own data without revealing the actual underlying data to either party.

Aside from the case of allowing the use of sensitive data in research, this approach would allow a company with financial information say, to share this data with an insurance company without handing over sensitive information but theoretically letting the insurance company carry out extensive data analytics.

What companies should do now to protect your data

As a starting point, Australian companies should only collect the minimum of personal information that the business actually needs. This means not collecting extra information simply for marketing purposes at some later date for example.

Companies then need to explain in simple, clear, terms why information is being collected, what it is being used for and get users to consent to giving that information.

Companies then need to secure the data that is collected. Security involves dedicated staff understanding the data that is kept by a company and taking responsibility for its physical security and for controlling who has access, when they have access and what form they can access the data.

Lastly, they need to understand and enact a risk management approach to all digital data. This means that this is part of the overall culture of the company for every employee.

David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The government’s new gas deal will ease the squeeze, but dodges the price issue

The government has so far refrained from putting a legal limit on LNG leaving our shores.
Ken Hodges/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Samantha Hepburn, Deakin University

The deal signed this week by the federal government and the nation’s biggest three gas producers will ease Australia’s gas supply squeeze, but it will do nothing to address the current high prices.

Under the contract, Shell, Origin and Santos have agreed to supply more domestic gas to avert the predicted shortfall for 2018.

In so doing, the government seemingly sidestepped the need to trigger its own powers to forcibly restrict gas exports.

Sighs of relief all round, then. But here’s the thing: neither the new deal, nor the legislation that governs export controls, actually addresses the issue that is arguably most important to consumers – the high prices Australians are paying for their gas.

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Read more: To avoid crisis, the gas market needs a steady steer, not an emergency swerve

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Australia has vast gas resources, and yet somehow we find ourselves with rising prices and a forecast shortfall of up to one-sixth of demand in the east coast gas market in 2018.

This is partly understandable, given that rising global demand has fuelled a lucrative export market. The primary destination is Asia, which will assume more than 70% of global demand. In geographical terms this puts Australian exporters in a very strong position, and by 2019 Australia is forecast to supply 20% of the global market – up from 9% today.

However, the strong global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) does not in itself provide the full explanation for rising gas prices in Australia’s east coast gas market. This is caused by a weak regulatory environment.

Policy levers

The Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which took effect in July 2017, gives the federal resources minister the power to restrict exports of LNG in the event of a forecast shortfall for the domestic market in any given year.

This five-year provision was designed as a short-term measure to ensure domestic gas supply. If triggered, it would require LNG exporters either to limit their exports or to find new sources of gas to offset the impact on the domestic market.

To trigger the mechanism, the minister must follow three steps:

1. formally declare that the forthcoming year has a domestic shortfall, by October 1 of the preceding year;

2. consult relevant market bodies, government agencies, industry bodies and other stakeholders to determine their view on the existing and forecast market conditions; and

3. make a determination by November 1 on whether to implement the measures.

Any export restriction implemented under the ADGSM would potentially apply to all LNG exports nationwide, including those from areas with no forecast gas shortage, such as Western Australia. The minister does have the ability to determine the type of export restriction that is imposed. An unlimited volume restriction does not impose a specific volumetric limitation and can be applied to LNG projects that are not connected to the market experiencing the shortfall. A limited volume restriction imposes specific limits on the amount of LNG that may be exported and may be applied to an LNG project that is connected to the market experiencing the shortfall.

Non-compliance with the export limits imposed on gas projects would have a range of potential consequences for gas companies. These include revocation of export licence, imposition of different conditions, or stricter transparency requirements.

The new deal

The agreement signed with the big three gas producers effectively relieves the government of the need to consider triggering the ADGSM. As such, 2018 has not been officially declared to be a domestic shortfall year.

But the agreement is not grounded upon any specific legislative provision. Therefore it is essentially only enforceable against the gas companies that are parties to it. And in accordance with the private terms and conditions that those companies agree to.

The broad agreement is that contractors will sell a minimum of 54 petajoules of gas into the east coast domestic market (the lower limit of the forecast shortfall) and keep more on standby in case the eventual shortfall turns out to be bigger.

But what about prices?

The deal contains no specific provision regarding domestic pricing. So, although there will be more gas in the domestic market, this does not necessarily mean that the current high prices will drop.

In the short term, the provision of additional supply may curtail dramatic increases in domestic gas prices. However, the gas deal does not address the core problem, which stems from our enormous commitment to LNG exports and the connection of domestic gas prices to the global energy market.

Indeed, the commitments are so great that many LNG operators have had to take conventional gas from South Australia and Victoria to fulfil their export contracts. This has put significant pressure on domestic prices.

The unequivocal truth is that gas prices were much cheaper before the LNG export boom. The only way to achieve some level of protection for domestic gas prices is to implement stronger regulatory controls on the export market. This should involve taking account of the public interest when assessing whether export restrictions should be imposed.

The ADGSM legislation does not incorporate any explicit public interest test, despite the fact that gas is a public resource in Australia and gas pricing is a strong public interest issue.

Compare that with the United States, where public interest is a key principle in assessing whether to approve any LNG exports to countries with no US free trade agreement (such as Japan). Public interest tests in the United States involve a careful determination of how exports will affect domestic supply and the potential impact that a strong export market will have upon domestic prices.

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Read more: Want to boost the domestic gas industry? Put a price on carbon

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The Australian government’s decision to broker a deal with gas suppliers, rather than extend the long arm of the law, means that regulators will need to keep a close eye on the gas companies to check that they are holding up their end of the bargain.

That job will fall to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). ACCC chair Rod Simms this week warned gas suppliers to ensure that their “retail margins are appropriate”.

In the absence of any explicit rules compelling gas producers that signed the deal to provide clear and accurate information and adopt stronger transparency protocols, the ACCC may face a very onerous task.

Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The economic reasons why Australia needs a stronger space industry

In the 1950s, Australia was actively involved in the space industry via collaboration with other space players, including the UK.
Shami Chatterjee/Flckr, CC BY-SA

Bin Li, University of Newcastle

A stronger space industry would benefit Australia’s economy, generating more exports and creating more job opportunities. Australia is well placed to expand its industry, particularly with the announcement of a new national space agency.

The government should actually aim to establish a national space policy as part of this announcement. That way it can secure the future of this industry.

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In the 1950s, Australia was actively involved in the space industry via collaboration with other space players, including the UK. However, this started to decline since the late 1960s because of the depression and huge cost of space programs.

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Read more: Yes, Australia will have a space agency. What does this mean? Experts respond

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According to the current IMF statistics, Australia now ranks the thirteenth in the world in terms of its GDP output, but still spends very little on developing its space industry. So it’s not surprising that the industry is now underdeveloped. Though the international space industry generates about US$400 billion a year, Australia contributes only 1% to this figure.

What a stronger space industry means to Australia’s economy

Australia could create more exports in the space industry by developing its own capability to launch satellites and taking more control of data and information acquired through satellites.

The data Australians use every day is now provided by international satellites and overseas corporations. Every year in order to collect information about earth from space, Australia pays about A$5.3 billion to the overseas satellite corporations.

Australia’s space industry currently employs up to 11,500 people. The plan to establish a national space agency could boost these numbers.

Beyond job opportunities for engineers and technicians in space launch services and satellite manufacturing, the industry also needs a great variety of specialists in other areas. For example, as a part of space industry supply chain, chemists are in demand to develop greener rocket fuel.

The space industry even requires lawyers. The international community has established an international treaty regime regulating space activities and as a part of this Australia has accepted various obligations. So the government and companies will need to access professional legal advice to ensure they aren’t violating Australia’s obligations under international space law.

There are more job opportunities than just astronauts, engineers and technicians in the space industry.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Flckr, CC BY-SA

In the context of manned space programs, Australia could also develop medical professionals who could be recruited to research the space environment’s impact on human bodies, as NASA has done in the US.

Australia’s advantages for a stronger space economy

Australia has a geographical advantage when it comes to being a leader in space industry. From the perspective of physics, the closer the launch site is to the Equator, the heavier satellite the rocket can carry.. That’s why the US has its Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

In terms of Australia, the Northern Territory’s close proximity to the Equator makes it an ideal rocket launch site for space missions. Perhaps this is why the NT government has shown interest in developing a space industry in the state.

In fact, a few state governments have been part of the push to develop a stronger space industry. South Australia and ACT were lobbying for a national space agency earlier in 2017 and the NT recently joined this push. This could have inspired the federal government to do more to be a national leader in developing space industry.

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Read more: Just one small step for Australia’s space industry when a giant leap is needed

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Given the technology-intensive nature of space industry, talent is very important for sustainable success. A number of Australian universities have conducted either their own space research projects or with overseas partners. This sort of research has fostered a large team of space specialists.

In addition, state governments, have also discussed space technology collaboration with foreign governments. For example, the South Australia government held talks with the French government on developing more talent in preparation for a growing space industry.

Given Australia’s big size and its reliance on space technology and service, it’s important for the nation to establish its own stronger space industry to meet its needs. Australia has a few advantages in developing this and a national space agency will definitely be a boost to this aim.

Bin Li, lecturer, University of Newcastle

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.